Jonathan Hayes
Jonathan Hayes has edited and published Over the Transom a Bay Area literary journal for the past twenty-seven years. He has taught poetry and published booklets for children in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. His most recent publication is Ghetto Sunshine & Other Poems 1997-2023, Mel C. Thompson Publishing, California, 2024. He lives with his wife in Oakland, California.
The following work is Copyright © 2025, and owned by Jonathan Hayes and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Flying Back East
I haven’t flown in over a decade and would not have been able to board
the plane without the help from my wife with all the new regulations:
You may have a water-bottle but no water in it.
Toothpaste; lotion; mouthwash; etc. cannot exceed 3.45 mm respectively
and they must be contained in a one-quart Ziploc bag.
The overhead bag/suitcase must not exceed 22” x 14” x 9” inches.
And then she reminded me, “Some of your dreadlocks are wrapped with metal wires
— don’t play around with TSA, take the wires out, and you look shady, so I’m going
to wait in the terminal till you get past security.”
She watched as I took off my sneakers, un-looped my belt, and waved to her
from the long line of passengers being monitored and rushing to board their planes.
I passed the inspection safely, put my sneakers back on, looped my belt, and texted her,
“Made it through security — Going to the airport bookstore, Books Inc. — Love you.”
I’m the only person in the bookstore at 6:45 a.m.
I find the smallest section, Spirituality, and the voice of Thich Nhat Hanh
pacifies me and my simmering anxiety of the upcoming flight by healing
oneself from within with a mind-and-breath technique.
Right next to Spirituality is the Poetry section where the simple yet profound
Billy Collins recites his short poem, “The Visit,” to me.
Yes, Billy, the wind is blowing me back East through a childhood door of memory
where my 80-year-old father waits to greet me just like he did many years ago,
when I ran directly toward him through the terminal, after being released by a stewardess,
to jump up into his strong arms and warm heart.
Christina M. Rau
Christina M. Rau, The Yoga Poet, leads Meditate, Move, & Create workshops for various organizations globally. Her collections include How We Make Amends, What We Do To Make Us Whole, and the Elgin Award-winning Liberating The Astronauts. She moderates the Women’s Poetry Listserv and has served as Poet in Residence for Oceanside Library (NY) since 2020. Her poetry airs on Destinies radio show (WUSB) and appears in various literary journals like fillingStation and The Disappointed Housewife while her prose has appeared in Punk Monk Magazine and Reader’s Digest. During her downtime, she watches the Game Show Network. Visit Christina on the web here.
The following work is Copyright © 2025, and owned by Christina M. Rau and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Coral
This shouldn’t be beautiful, but it is. –Elsie Driggs
Coral reefs blanch. Bleaching is what they call it.
As if coral were Carol from up the street and around
the corner who dyes her hair what she thinks is blonde
but turns out somewhat red, thinking the dye job makes
her more appealing to the men at the deli and the auto
shop when really it reminds everyone to call a plumber
to investigate the rusted pipes under the kitchen sink.
The fading color below sea’s surface down down down
to the deep bottom floor isn’t as sassy as the archetype
80s bimbo pinup frosted and airbrushed and waxed and
bleached wherever bleach can be applied without much
pain or provocation.
Instead, it’s a euphemism as all good science is.
The coral is dead. Dying. Drained of all vibrance.
Suffering slowly and greatly, sneaking across
reefs. A chemical crisis blamed on SPF and ozone.
Still, those brilliant colors first fade to pastel as
life fades out, a natural gorgeous death.
An Intense Event Of Galactic Proportions
Young stars energize hydrocarbon dust—
the dust glows orange. Two inner rings
bright. One colorful outer 500 million
lightyears away in the sculptor constellation.
What had happened was
there was this large spiral galaxy spiralling
away doing its corkscrew thing maybe a
little bit tipsy from whatever was uncorked.
And then there was this smaller galaxy near
by, nothing special, just jillions of stars and
space ephemera floating and existing in space.
And then that thing happened where one galaxy
becomes so galactic of itself that it kind of gets
out of control—
like when Helen Hunt was on angel dust
before she was mad about you and jumped
out that window as a warning to youngsters
who didn’t even know what hallucinogenics were, or
like those monkeys people keep as pets
who one day decide they’ve had enough
of high chairs and dress up and patty-cake
and all domestication and decide to show
their wild, or
like when you hear a synthesized tune
the neighbor next door blasts
beyond the fence and you look up
and see clouds shaped as dragons and
sheep and a school bus all at the same time
and you spin and you spin and you spin and you spin and
your arms go wide and your face tilts up and if this
were a movie the camera would be above you and
maybe there would be rain and in any case it would
zoom out from a close-up of your eyes half-open quickly
and away until you were a spec on the screen whirling and
whirling and whirling—
